NSO Pops: An Evening with Natalie Merchant: Keep Your Courage Tour at Concert Hall at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

James Bagwell, conductor Famed singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant, former front person of the folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs, brings her Keep Your Courage tour to the Concert Hall! Come experience her unique, lush folk-alternative sound with selections from her newest album, performed live with the National Symphony Orchestra. Keep Your Courage, Merchant’s ninth solo studio album and first of new material since 2014’s self-titled record, will be released in April 2023. Merchant writes in her album’s liner notes, “The songs contained within this album were written and recorded during the global pandemic that began in the winter of 2019 and is in its fifth wave as I write, in the autumn of 2022. It has been, and continues to be, a period of great flux and fear on every level: global, national, communal, familial, personal. But this is not an album about the coronavirus or the chaos it caused. For the most part, this is an album about the human heart.” She continues. “The word ‘courage’ has its root in the Latin word for heart, cor, and we see it over and over in many languages: le coeur, il cuore, o coração, el corazón. This is a song cycle that maps the journey of a courageous heart.” Over her forty-year career, Natalie Merchant has attained a place among America’s most respected recording artists. She has earned a reputation for being a songwriter of quality and a captivating stage performer, and has distinguished herself as a social justice and environmental activist. Merchant began her musical career as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the pop music band 10,000 Maniacs and released one platinum, two double-platinum, and one triple-platinum records with the group.